Importance of maternal resources in pollen limitation studies with pollinator gradients: A case study with sunflower

Pollen limitation studies are scarce in entomophilous crops, as it can be very tedious to supplement plants with hand pollination at the relevant plant scale. To overcome this, recent studies have used pollinator gradients over several fields to assess whether crops were pollen limited. But the plant maternal resources and thus the yield potential may vary between fields of the same crop. If these resources are not properly controlled, it may affect the conclusions of the study.